Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Thursday used quotes from Attorney General Bill Barr and Trump impeachment lawyer Alan Dershowitz to argue that, contrary to President Donald Trump’s claims, abuse of power is an impeachable offense.
During his presentation before the Senate, Nadler played a clip of Dershowitz from 1998 in which he argued that impeaching a president does not require the identification of a specific crime.
“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of the president, and who abuses trust, and who poses a great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime,” Dershowitz says in the video.
Nadler then read a quote from Barr in which he made the explicit case that a president can be removed from office for abuse of power.
“The fact that the president is answerable for any abuses of discretion and is ultimately subject to the judgement of Congress through the impeachment process means that the president is not the judge in his own case,” Barr wrote less than two years ago.
Watch the video below.